Red
by Marla Fair
Summary: Classic Nightwing. Dick Grayson's response to 'The Sound of One Finger Tapping'.


Red

Black.

It was black.

But all I could see was red.

The red of the eyes that watched me in the dark: the crimson of hate, the scarlet of fear.

The red of the gunpowder as it ignited and sent millions of gallons of filthy brown water cascading through the gaping hole in the stone wall of Blackgate as I swung up into the darkness executing my escape.

Red, the color of the Beast.

The color of my blood.

The color of her hair.

ooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

I don't know how I got there. I don't know why I went.

I could have gone to the cave. _Should_ have gone to the cave.

But I went there.

Through the black to the red.

To her.

ooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

Perhaps it was for sympathy. For a kindly word and a gentle touch.

Maybe I knew the cave too well. It's black too.

Black as his moods. Black, sometimes, like a night without stars and no hope of morning.

Perhaps there is something to be said for the fact that Bruce chose to burrow deep into the earth, digging a hole to hide in, while Barbara….

Well, Barbara has made her home among the stars. High in a tower.

Hidden? Yes.

Reclusive? True.

But more like Rapunzel. As if someone were holding her there against her will.

Rapunzel had long hair; a golden stair, I think they called it.

I wonder what Barbara would look like with really long hair…

Must have drugged me.

I'm losing it.

oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

Losing. Lost.

Loss.

Now there's a word for you. Both black _and_ red. Combining hopelessness and pain. Constant and yet fleeting. So constant you think you will never escape; so fleeting that at times it slips through your fingers like quicksilver and then you hurt that much more for being able to forget.

She can never forget. Her pain rides with her each time she moves. It carries her. Her loss an all too familiar companion she would gladly part with.

ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

Familiar.

Odd how a city can seem familiar after the rage of the gods has remade it in its own image, but it can.

I knew it. Knew the sight and the smell of it and found it curiously comforting as I flew over the broken and battered rooftops of what had once been Gotham.

I remember landing with a jolt that sent shock-waves through me bigger than the ones that followed the quake.

I remember the glass. There was rain streaming down it like tears. Somehow I managed to open the window just as the lightning flashed and there she was, sitting at that infernal keyboard, tapping. Always tapping. She looked up and her face went white. I tried to smile but I didn't have the strength and then the world went Bruce's favorite color.

Black.

ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

And then red.

I don't know how many hours I was out but when my eyes opened I saw it.

Red. Red hair.

I have to admit, at first, my mind flew to Kory. God, I was young then. Seems a lifetime ago. She was like the star-fire that coursed through her: Passionate. Blazing. Wild and untamed. Like the fever that burned even now through my ravaged system, she threatened to consume me.

But it wasn't her. The voice was wrong. And the touch: it was tentative, not familiar at all. No, not Kory.

Barbara. Another redhead.

What is it with me and red?

oooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

Robin red-breast, that was me, winging through the inky sky at the side of the black Bat. I wore that uniform proudly, sporting those vivid colors as if daring someone to take aim.

Two-face took the dare. And the Joker.

The first time I paid. The second….

oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

I wore red before that, you know. In the circus. Dick Grayson. Acrobat extraordinare, flying without a net at his parent's side.

We should have had a net.

Never learned.

No net then or now.

Red rushing through the air, defying death. Black loss waiting below.

ooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

Black and red. Everyone dead.

Blood on the uniform. Blood on the costume.

Blood on me.

My fault. Always my fault.

Mom. Dad. Jason...

Forgive me.

Help me….

oooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

There's another shade of red. It's called anger.

It can be black too, but then it goes by the name of despair.

I've known them both.

They have tried but they haven't destroyed me.

God alone knows why.

oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

Black and red. Everyone dead.

But me.

oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

The touch was so soft I almost missed it, swimming as I was in a sea of self-inflicted pain. Uncertain, hesitant.

There was a voice too. Neither hesitant nor uncertain. It managed to penetrate the darkness I had wrapped about myself, its cool sureness washing over me like a balm.

I opened my eyes.

Red against black. Barbara, blazing like a white light in the dark night of her tower. Rescuing me.

Black against red. Peaceful sleep. Her face burnt into my mind's eye as I let it go and chose to let her.

ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

Black,

It was black.

But all I could see was red.

Red like a jewel, keen and bright, a gift placed in my hand.

Red like a fire that washed away the guilt and grief and left in its wake a field ripe for planting. Eager for new life.

oooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

What is it with me and red?


End file.
